


the other side of the war

by bluecarrot



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: American Revolution, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Graphic Description, Historical Inaccuracy, Male Friendship, Multi, No Fluff, No Sex, Not Pleasant, Realistic, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:07:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7445404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which Hamilton and Burr play some wargames, or are played, by both sides.</p><p>set (appropriately enough!) during the American Revolutionary War, and i try to be reasonably accurate but historical <i>liberties</i> abound because i really cannot be arsed to look things up</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> started 6-27-16, from a dream. i woke up shivering and sweating and had to write it out before i could sleep again. Sarah, lovely Sarah, i looked for you in the camp & could not find you.
> 
> *
> 
> For J.  
> I'll write you every day of my life, soldier.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Alex and Burr have a picnic and it ends rather poorly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brief violence, plenty of gore. my poor Burr!

It happens like this: redcoats crest a hill. They see Burr and Alex. And it is over -- just like that, no time to run, no time to reach for weapons, no time to run and hide among the trees. A second of chaos and it is over.  

They were talking, laughing, off-guard and resting, full of food and sunlight, and their own damn reaction gives them away as anything _but_ innocent farmers breaking for a picnic lunch. A stupid, _stupid_ mistake. They should have scouted first -- they should have -- _we ought to have,_  Burr thinks, pedantic, and self-hatred comes in sharp as a blow.

He had been laughing. He was alone with Alex and he was laughing and for a moment everything was easy, he just _wasn't thinking._ He had managed to forget they were at war.

So this is the price for a second of inattention: five British soldiers in those _ridiculously_ bright uniforms circle around, and he and Alex are pressed back-to-back, they're holding out their hands to show they are unarmed although it should be damned obvious even to the idiotic British as they see their muskets left leaning against a tree, they shoulder them (Alex stiffens up) and test them for sightline, they flick the rusty brittle bayonets and laugh.

Burr thinks: _I will not resist this._  Breathe easy. Be calm. Be _empty._ He knows how to empty himself, it's like a room in him that he can enter and leave, but Alex is breathing hard and he is angry and any minute now he will start arguing and then -- then, what? How can he weigh what he knows and what he doesn't know against the impossible volume of what _might happen?_ How can he make a decision? There is so much unknown. Unknowable.

Dimly he hears a soldier call out -- he's found their bag tucked among the hip-high grass. Alex makes a noise in his throat like an angry cat and Burr returns to himself, he elbows his friend hard in the back and presses their shoulders together, trying to signal without looking like he is signaling, thinking _Alex stay quiet please just don't speak at all,_ because Alex cannot control his mouth and somewhere in that satchel he has papers that need to be delivered to -- someone -- Burr doesn't know what sort of papers, he doesn't know who they need to go to, he didn't ask. Alex only said _Do you want to go with me_ and Burr said _Yes._ He didn't ask why or where, he didn't _want_ to know, and right now he's thinking that was a very wise decision; he's thinking it doesn't much matter _what_ the papers say or who they're for, because Alex is important and therefore the papers are important, and there's a horrible drumbeat starting up in his chest that says _This could be bad This could be bad Very bad Very bad._

Alex is important.

Burr is expendable.

So he steps ever-so-slightly forward towards the commanding officer. He's thinking _calm, calm, stay calm_ to all seven of them here because he can hear Alex somewhere behind him, spitting and sputtering and twisting and arguing about restraints, oh Alex be _quiet --_

"Sir," Burr says, as respectful and cool to this unknown rank as if he were his own commanding officer, still holding out his bare hands palm-up, moving carefully slow: "Do you really think --"

The man lifts up Burr's own musket and bashes him in the face with the stock.

Burr drops. Light flashes through him, light and pain, immediate and immediately overwhelming. Blood pours over his hands and he's trying to catch it as if that will somehow help, and he's trying not to vomit, he's trying not to pass out from shock and adrenaline and a stupid, brutal, useless sense of _injustice_ \--

Alex makes some inarticulate noise and Burr thinks again  _be quiet be quiet Alex quiet Alex quiet quiet,_ and now he is tugged upwards by a hand on the scruff of his shirt --

"On your feet, soldier -- _Rise,_ I said --"

So doggedly Burr rises, both hands cupped now around his mouth. The right side of his face is already hugely swollen, squeezing shut his eye. Blood runs between his fingers and down his arm, soaking into the sleeve of his jacket. Light and dark come on with the hot throb of his pulse and his mouth is half-open, spilling out more blood.

He tilts back his head and meets the cool gaze of the man who hit him, and again he thinks:  _This is so bad_.

 

 

They march forward for what seems like days in the horrible windless heat but cannot be that long really; the sun remains motionless, high over the treetops, and Burr still bleeds dripping dropping down unto his clothes, it's all over his neck and chest and arms and it itches like hell and that is almost the worst part because he can't _scratch_ , his hands are tied up tight behind him and there is a bayonet at his back and he is helpless, _helpless._  

He's been crying, too: the aftereffect of trauma. He hates himself as much for the tears as for being captured in the first place.  _Stupid,_  he thinks with every step. He didn't realize they were so close to the British camps. He should have known. He should have scouted. 

_Stupid. Stupid._

 

As the sun trickles down and the shadows drag out long and flat, Burr finally realizes the obvious.  _Alexander knew._ He must have known. He's friends with commanders, he's seen the maps, he knows where the campsites are. 

_Alex knew._

The realization makes him feel even sicker.

Meanwhile, Alex hasn't said a word. 

 

 

In the British camp, and 

"What is this?" A new voice. Cultured, controlled. That sort of disinterest only comes from money. An officer, then.

Burr ought to look out of his one good eye and watch this but he can't lift his head, he can't look around, he's barely standing on his feet and he wants only to rest. He was right not to ask Alex about the letters after all, then, because he would gladly and gratefully tell any secrets if they just let him  _sit._

"Spies." That's the one who hit him. His tone says:  _fools_.

"The man here is injured."

"He shot at me, sir." 

"Indeed? Yet you bear no marks, Field Officer. Did the weapon misfire or did he simply ... miss you entirely?" His voice changes, he is speaking to Burr now: "You must be a piss-poor soldier, colonist. A true credit to your country."

Burr says nothing. He is spending all his energy and focus on staying upright.

"He tried to escape, sir, Captain -- that is what I meant to say."

"As you say. Put these two with --" (Burr tries to catch the name, the location, the meaning, _anything_ that might be useful later, but he is so tired, so tired, it's all he can do to keep his eyes open) " -- and you will see to it that there are no other  _attempts_. You understand, we are the King's men. We must act the better part of this goddamned war." He hesitates, then goes on: "No matter what our private opinions."

"Sir," says Burr's soldier, meaning _yes_ and also _fuck you._ Even Burr can hear that. God knows he's used the word in a similar way often enough.

 

 

Someone takes him inside a tent, flapping whitely. Blessed shade. And his hands are still bound painfully tight but he is permitted to sit on a camp chair now and it might be the best moment of his life.

A huge man leans over Burr. He is meaty-looking and broad-shouldered and tall. He touches his face -- gently -- with one dirty hand, and Burr flinches away, mumbling something, he doesn't know what he wants to say and it's inarticulate anyway because his face and mouth are so terribly swollen and stuck together with clotted blood. What are they going to do with him? Where is _Alex?_

"Easy," says the huge man, as mildly as if he's talking to a frightened animal. A horse. He puts one of those enormous hands on the back of his head in a steadying, supportive gesture and says "Easy, easy" again, and it almost works; Burr is startled, he goes still, he is confused, he is looking up and frowning with his one mobile eyebrow.

And the man forces open his mouth, using both hands now because Burr is screaming aloud and thrashing, he kicks out trying to escape but it doesn't matter, he's still tied and seated, weakened, exhausted. The man runs his thick, dirty fingers into the solemn privacy of Burr's mouth, holding his jaw apart, and now he takes up a pliers and pulls out the remains of several fractured teeth, and Burr cannot stop screaming.

Blood is running down his face again and now he is on his knees, leaning forward on the dirt and dried grass, vomiting up the little bit left in his stomach.

The man rests his hand on the back of Burr's head. "Breathe, little one." He helps him sit up and gives him a drink -- it is water, tinny and sour and flat. Burr spits it back out, red. And now he's given something to bite on, folded fabric, to soak up the blood and long slimy trails of saliva that won't stop coming and coming. Biting hurts terribly but not-biting is worse. His mouth and throat fill with blood and he swallows and chokes and sobs, there on his knees like a child, looking up at the enemy.

"Shh, it's not so bad as all that," says the huge man, quiet and almost comforting. He crouches down, too; he strokes Burr's forehead. It's probably the only place on him that isn't a mess of spittle and blood and vomit and tears. 

"Little one," he says. "Little lionheart. Shhh."

_But Alex is the one they cal_ _l the lion_ , Burr thinks vaguely: and then he is gone.

 

 

He wakes up on the ground.

Alex is nearby.

He's arguing.

Of course he's arguing. And he must have tried to "escape," too; he's got a marvelous black eye and a fat lip and his shirt is all dirt and mud. 

So much for the field officer's promises. 

Burr sits up. 

The world spins and spins and settles uneasily, upside-down.

Everywhere there are tents and red uniforms.

Oh this is bad, _bad --_

But he's alive. His hands are freed and neither one of them has been hanged, at least not yet, and why would they bother doctoring him if they were just going to hang him? And Alex is alive -- without his papers, that much is unquestionable.

If his papers are gone, that means -- _what?_

Something. Something bad. Burr doesn't dare ask, even in the most coded of language.

He tries to speak but his throat is too dry so he coughs and spits instead, getting rid of the horrible dirty fabric in his mouth and bringing on a cough from the hoarseness in his throat and trailing out more blood, more spittle, flecked with clots of red --

"Aaron. _Christ_." Alex is here with Burr, his argument is forgotten now, he's kneeling and touching light fingers to Burr's face and mouth but he flinches and moans and Alex draws his hand away bright red and he's babbling -- "Burr your face let me see it fuck fuck are you all right did they hurt you more fuck Burr they took you away they wouldn't let me see you they wouldn't tell me anything what did they do what did they do to you oh god Aaron--"

Burr shakes his head and gestures to Alex's swollen eye.

Alex's mouth snaps shut and flushes a little underneath his sunburn. "Oh. That. It's nothing. I was angry."

"You're always angry," says Burr. It comes out like _oooah aawaw amamamaeee._

"Yeah," says Alexander, who never seems to need more than a glance, a shrug, to understand him. He's holding on to Burr's shoulder, hand gripping tight; he's trembling all over and he looks furious and frightened and -- something else, something Burr can't understand. "Yeah. Well. There's a lot to be mad about." He reaches out to Burr's face again and doesn't quite touch it. "I am so sorry," he says.

He steps back. Looks around.

Says nothing.

 

 

Prisoners, they learn, are not entitled to bedrolls, blankets, or tents. They are indeed citizens of the King, as Alex argues with their annoyed guard, but the guard reminds him they are also captives, and insurrectionists, and therefore -- 

Therefore the captives drink more of the flat, dead-tasting water, and some peon brings them what is meant to pass for supper among _British citizens_ : starvation rations, meant to give the army a shiny veneer of respectability, some proof they are not ill-treating the opposing side of this war. It looks revolting: a quarter hardtack biscuit apiece and an even smaller square of bacon, mostly grease. Burr cannot eat on raw gums and anyway has no appetite so gives his share to Alex, who immediately softens it in water and swallows it all down, meat first.

He only remembers to look guilty afterwards.

One by one the campfires blink out, dying on their own or doused out by piss, steam hissing upward.

All around them sleeps the British army. There are a surprising number of snorers.

One redcoat remains awake and watching them; he yawns half-audibly now and then but nothing more, he doesn't bother even to acknowledge their presence as more than "you there" and "keep quiet" and "wipe that expression off your face, colonist, or I will do it for you."

Alex does not change his expression; he only rolls over, curling on his other side. He shuts his eyes and is asleep at once, gone someplace Burr cannot follow.

So Burr lays on his back and stares up at the cloud-drawn sky. Sleep will not come tonight; there is no question. His face is swollen and stiff and his mouth still leaks blood and his cheekbone feels broken and maybe his nose as well, who can tell? It just hurts and hurts and _hurts_ , so unceasingly that he can hardly think around the pain, and beneath that is a bonedeep throbbing ache even more horrible, even more inescapable: the pulse of his own heart.

Nothing for it. 

He tries to think of something else -- anything else. Tally the costs of the war and the costs of staying loyal: which side is winning? But the figures spin and spiral out of hand at once. How can you measure the value of _liberty_ against  _safety_? Except that he did it, he chose a side and he is here now, and he must have been mad or drunk or both to take this risk, but he is here now and there can be no change -- No. He is here and Alex is here and they are _together;_  isn't that enough? Alex is bruised and angry and vibrantly, fiercely, beautifully _alive._ It's a gift to be with him. It must be. It is a generous, benevolent mercy.

\-- Or else a debt gone unpaid.

He does not want to think of it that way, he _must not_ _think it_ but the thought once come will not leave, he is still grappling when a flash of light comes in over the hill, displaying the purple underbelly of clouds and the rough barrier of distant trees and the familiar accompaniment of cannonfire.

Burr goes still -- like a rabbit goes still when a hawk passes above, silently circling. 

He waits and waits and hears nothing more, sees no more distant flashes, smells nothing but campfires and sun-warmed latrine pits and the bitter rank of his own sweat and fear and sickness and pain.

A hallucination, then. It is not the first time. 

Slowly unconsciousness swells and he is gratefully slipping into the numbness when then the sound and the light comes again, more distant now but he jerks awake with a heart-tearing sense of panic and again again again he feels the sweat gather under his arms and behind his knees and on the palms of his hands.  _Why isn't anyone responding?_ He lays and shakes with fear until his exhausted brain can understand  _it is thunder._  Only thunder. Only a storm. Not distant cannon, not gunfire, not an attack, not anymore, maybe later but not _right now_.

So.

So this is another thing taken from him. Another loss. He wants to sob again -- he feels the choking grief rise in his chest and press down hard on his breathing -- but he cannot find energy for it. Will he ever hear a storm again without wanting to run?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -that's a Catch-22 reference there, yep  
> -Burr isn't crying from the pain; he's having an adrenaline dump. it's one hell of a horrible experience  
> -Alex only says "Aaron" when he is really, really upset  
> -is a British citizen still a British citizen when he is taking up arms about Britain? HMMM  
> -eating hardtack is usually a little more involved than i describe here but i couldn't be arsed and you probably don't care  
> -i want to write more coherently about the feeling of having YET ANOTHER THING taken from you but, no, really, i cannot face this yet  
> -thunderstorms always sound like cannon to me, still.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which our lads continue to be held captive -- Alex has a secret -- and Burr manages to be polite, more or less, except when he's not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note - continuing angst, a bit of violence, a bit of gore, and a very very non-explicit visit to a prostitute

War is intensely dull.

Captivity is far worse.

Burr cannot speak. He is still misshapen, still leaking blood, and it hurts badly enough that he doesn't like to try.

Alex is more than able to talk enough for two people, but even he runs out of safe topics and he's left staring into the distance, over the red shoulders and off-white canvas tents and the dark smudge of distant trees, into some unknowable distance.

"What are you thinking?" Burr tries to ask, and Alex ignores this repeated mumbling until Burr is annoyed enough to get up and shake his shoulder and draw a question mark in the dirt. _What_?

Alex only shakes his head.

So.

By suppertime his nausea is gone and Burr is hungry enough to try to eat -- hungry enough that he can pick a maggot out of the hardtack and go through the familiar process of soaking it in warm water, waiting, attacking it with a spoon to make it soften faster. He carefully spoons the gruel into his mouth, wincing, losing half of it down his chin.

It helps a little.

Afterwards Alex takes his own shirtsleeve and dips it in water and carefully dabs at Burr's face, scolding him to hold still when he flinches away, telling stories about how gruesome he is, how much blood there is, how much women love scars and war-wounds and stories of horror. Burr knows all that already and he would really prefer to let his gruesome face stay sticky for another few days, despite the flies that crawl and bite because Alex's soft-handed tending is quite _quite_ painful. He stays obediently quiet anyway. Alex is trying to clean away more than the blood; he wants to replace the memory of that blow, the touches of the fat-handed man, Burr's last memories, with something more tender. 

It works. But it hurts in a different way now, because Alex is crying.

Burr isn't supposed to see that -- he has his one eye shut and the other still won't open at all -- he only _hears_  as his friend chokes on unbidden tears; he feels Alex's hands tremble as they wipe and daub and wring out the cloth and return again to him, return again and again, giving what he can.

Burr finally opens his eye and watches his friend. Alex is washing his hands in the blood-dirty, muddy water; his head is down and he looks very quiet -- very still.

"Alex," Burr says. _Aaaaeeesh._

The head comes up and that is worse. He looks lost. Haunted. "I'm sorry," he says.

"Not your fault," says Burr, but it's unintelligible.

Alex shakes his head. "Don't try to talk. Lay down. Go to sleep. You need to rest."

"Day now," says Burr. _Daaahhh oooooww._

"It will be dark soon," says Alex: and he is right.

 

 

Morning again. Light crests in the sky, a feather, a slender tendril.

Burr rubs his face without meaning to and makes a noise, a moan; he sits up quickly to forestall -- whatever might happen -- but no one seems to have heard. And the grass beside him is empty. He touches it. Cold. 

_Where the fuck is Alexander?_

Fear grips him and he looks over to the guard -- but the solder is asleep, too -- _and maybe that's even worse,_ Burr thinks because god knows what madness Alex has been planning. Escape, maybe. Maybe he wants to put on a British uniform and steal a horse and go back to their own camp; who knows. Burr wouldn't put it past him. So he lays down again, shutting his eyes, trying to look asleep, ignorant if not innocent: keeping dumb is the most he can do right now to help. 

A few minutes later _someone_  comes and sits nearby, pressing his back against Burr's back, sighing a little, and -- it really is incredible how quickly some men fall asleep -- and then Alex is breathing deeply again, limbs loose, tension gone.

 

 

"Where the fuck were you?" Burr says. He doesn't bother to lower his voice; he doesn't think there is much chance of anyone else understanding.

"What?"

"This morning. Tell me. Where?"

Alex has never been able to hide anything from his face and he understands every word, Burr sees that, and he also sees the exact moment when Alexander decides to lie to him. "I was right here all night. Didn't even get up to piss."

"Lying fuckhead," says Burr.

"You need to stop trying to communicate or you need to try a lot harder," says Alex, and he smiles. 

Burr would like to punch him.

 

 

His gums heal fast enough and then he can eat, but the swelling and pain are much slower to recede. And one day it rains -- a cold, bitter rain, accompanied by a violent flash of storm -- and his head aches so terribly before and afterward that at first he is afraid it will come apart, and then he hopes it will. Nothing for it.

After a week he is able to speak more or less clearly enough to be understood; he can even lightly touch his nose, his cheek, without flinching away.

Small victories.

But Alex looks at him with a sort of pride. "War wounds, Burr. Remember that."

 

 

Again he wakes at night to find Alex gone. He lays in the dark still and careful and terrified until the other man returns, and then he doesn't even try to ask questions, just rolls over and presses against his friend, pressing one hand to his chest over the quick-beating heart like he can hold it in place, like he can protect Alex from his own wretched foolishness and now Alex is holding him close, stroking the hair back from his face, saying _Shhh, Aaron,_  and his arm goes tight around him and Burr falls asleep while Alex stays awake, and carefully thinks.

 

 

Another week goes past, and a few days, and then Burr is traded out. 

They asked for a volunteer. Burr did not speak or move but Alex actually shoved him forward, a hard shove between his shoulder-blades, and said "Take this one, sir" in a hard voice -- and Burr didn't argue, he is still slow to react, he's still learning to speak around the new shape of his swollen face and jaw, and he was startled, amazed, he didn't expect this from _Alex_ of all people, Alex who has after all never been even the slightest bit self-sacrificing before.

They still haven't gotten a chance to speak in private. Not really. Just stolen words and scraps of conversation. Burr was afraid to ask what he wanted to know, afraid they'd be overheard, and Alexander seemed to want to talk about anything but the war, so he must have had some plans of his own. He didn't think to mention that his plan was to stay behind. Or maybe he wasn't being self-sacrificing at all, Burr thinks: but that makes him feel even worse, that Alex is doing something big, something important, and he isn't aware of it.

And now Burr is being led away, hands bound in front of him so he can be tied to a horse and stumble after it, and he is twisting around to look at Alex and meet his eyes and share some shred of mutual understanding, but Alex is already gone.

 

 

"You have nothing? No reconnaissance at all? You spent over a week in enemy camp, Lieutenant Colonel."

Burr does not react. "Yes, sir. No reconnaissance, sir." He's still mumbling a little, dropping contestants and the sibilant _s_ , he can hear it and he hates being this inarticulate but he cannot seem to correct himself without a lot of spitting and that is far far worse.

Meanwhile, he's caught up in a sense of _wrongness_. He shouldn't be here, dammit,  _Alex_ should be here, Alex is more valuable, what the hell was he _thinking_ to offer up Burr instead of stepping forward himself --

"And Mr Hamilton is still with the enemy," says the General, thoughtful.

_Mister_ Hamilton, when Alex is a ranked officer -- "Sir?" _Thir._

"I said: he is there and you are here."

"Sir, yes sir." A pause. Lee seems to be waiting for something more than simple agreement with the bland facts so Burr offers up: "He volunteered me, sir."

"Indeed."

"He's very brave, sir." He is being stupid again, speaking without being prompted, but he doesn't care, he's tired -- so tired -- and angry, too. Angry with Alex and with Lee and the British and with the colonists and angry with himself. He's angry with the whole goddamned war.

"Braver than you, Lieutenant Colonel?"

"Apparently so. Sir." And this time Burr doesn't bother to hide the _fuck you_ in his voice.

The General looks at him, up and down -- taking in his blood-and-shit-stained clothing that they wouldn't let him change out of before they dragged him in here for _reconnaissance_ \-- he sees Burr's ill-fitting boots stolen from a dead redcoat ages ago -- hands and wrists still red and swollen and tender from ropeburn where they tied him with deliberate cruelty again -- all the way up to his mangled, still-puffy face and the furious, steady set of his jaw.

Lee is a fool and a coward but even fools may be perceptive and Burr cannot tell what he sees and he cannot stop being _angry._ But he can wait. And does. He stands still. He does not so much as shift a muscle of his aching legs though they almost tremble with the effort it takes to hold himself upright; he is taut and raging and perfectly, unyieldingly polite.

The moment lasts and lasts until finally Lee snaps "As you were!" and turns his back, and that's the end of it, Burr is dismissed. He stumbles out of the tent and finds some shade and falls asleep falls asleep falls asleep. 

He dreams of Alex. He dreams of his own cowardice and indecision, as he sees it, happening again and again throughout his life, damning him with silence.

 

 

Someone (probably _not_ General Lee) transfers him to guarding the prisoners; probably this is meant to be kind, a sort of apology for the beating, giving him light duties while he recuperates fully. It only makes him more tense. 

He has three British soldiers to watch over -- one was traded back for Burr himself but apparently these are the dregs, private soldiers only and they aren't wanted back even to get rid of the constantly-annoying Alexander. The dregs indeed: the captives are _exceptionally_ boring. They hardly speak amongst themselves, hardly acknowledge their guard except with quick, unfeigned deference and fear. They absolutely never try to escape, and anyway Burr feels no interest making a warning out of anyone.

He lets his body heal, lets his mind recover, lets his muscles gain tone again. He learns to eat around the missing teeth. 

He plots.

He thinks that Alex must be doing the same: eating, plotting, _waiting_. How it must chafe at him, wherever he is. If he still _is_ somewhere (but Burr won't admit that Alexander might be dead, he cannot bear the thought of it; Alex is bright and violable and volatile and it is impossible that light will go out).

 

 

He spends two _boring_ days watching the prisoners. He's been removed entirely from camp chores and he props up his feet, going over and over a speech in his mind.

On the third day he decides it is good enough -- or at least that worrying at it won't make it better.

Whether or not Lee will agree is another question entirely.

 

 

"Absolutely not."

Burr tells himself that he expected no other response, but his chest hurts: he must have hoped a little after all. "Sir -- if I may speak, explain myself a little more comprehensively --"

"You may not. I am not interested in your childish dreams of self-sacrifice, Lieutenant."

How neatly he pushes Burr down the notches in rank! Burr paces himself, controlling his reaction, inward and outward: he must stay _calm_. "Sir, I want only to aide our troops -- our cause. Colonel Hamilton is far more valuable than myself. Sir. If we could bargain with them -- trade more of their men for only _one_ of us --"

"You say he gave them a false name."

"He did, sir. But --" He falters. "Pardon, but Alex cannot hide his light under a bushel. It must be clear enough what sort of man he is."

"Alex," repeats the General, with a lift of his heavy eyebrows.

"Col. Hamilton, I mean. _Sir_. He is clever, sir. And he finds it difficult to be patient under stress. I'm afraid he might speak out of turn if he is left alone." He shuts his eyes briefly; this is a poor move, sacrificing the Rook, but what better choice does he have?

Lee laughs out loud, not kindly. "They told me you were intelligent, Burr. How can you argue both that he is good enough to save us all and stupid enough to expose us? -- Return to your post."

Burr doesn't move. "Sir, with all due respect: You are making a mistake."

_"You are dismissed,_ Lieutenant _."_

"Respectfully, General --"

"Saying the word _respect_ doesn't make your behavior anything less than insubordination. You will go to your goddamned post -- now, Lieutenant Colonel -- and you will  _stay there_. And be damned grateful it isn't latrine duty, Burr. I have half a mind on it ..."

"Sir," says Burr; he clicks together his boot-heels and tightly salutes and pushes his way out of the tent, walking so fast the wind cannot cool the heat and anger from his face. It is a cold wind, blowing south, and the leaves are beginning to fall. Winter will be here soon.

 

 

The British are more pragmatic than Lee, or at least less irritable; they negotiate the release of their three prisoners for an undisclosed amount of supplies and Burr expects he will be soon returned to common duties. He is holding down a hollow gourd in a water-trough, holding his head down too, watching the air bubble up slowly, worrying about Alex, when someone says his name. "Lt. Col, Mr Burr, sir --"

"What is it? At your ease," he adds, because the boy looks painfully young and nervous. He can't be older than sixteen. If that. Probably he lied about his age to enlist. sending goddamned children to fight and die-- is this what they've come to? is this what they want their new country to be? (And he really cannot get used to meriting a _Sir_.)

"I was sent to find you, sir. There are new prisoners."

"What? Already?"

"They're down on the left bank -- spies, sir, someone said --"

 Not spies, Burr thinks, seeing the prisoners. More likely deserters. There are only two men. They look simultaneously embarrassed to be caught and relieved to be caught by the opposing army; at least here they might be fed rather than hanged. (Although they won't be fed, either, if Lee has anything to do with it.)

One of them scuffs his feet in the dirt and the other looks around steadily, not with the expression of gathering information but that of one who is really interested: he is a beast of a man, broad-shouldered and meaty and tall too, soaring well over six feet where most men fall underneath that number; he's head and shoulders above Burr, who is quite small.

He looks, Burr thinks, familiar.

So when they are alone -- only the captives and himself -- Burr sets on some water to boil for tea. It's one of the few things that Continental and British men can agree on, after all. Tea is all good things. It's home, and home is gone now -- gone for all of them.

And he waits for it. It is a while in coming. The British men quietly drink their tea and speak about commonplace things and gradually the camp settles into night and sleep and Burr settles down too; it's a good time, this first watch. He likes it. He likes the odd silence while everyone is deep in their first sleep. The world seems very large and still, and he is alone with his thoughts.

Burr watches the enormous man lay down on his shared bedroll; he stares up at the sky; he says in a low voice, not to wake his bed-mate, "You're looking better than last I saw you, little lion."

Oh how he hates that epithet. "If you try to pull out any more of my teeth, you'll see how _little_ I am."

"Better out than broken, and poisoning you with blood-rot. How is the rest healing? No other troubles?"

"None of your making, nor of the Field Officer. I was surprised to see you here."

"You'd more expect to meet me swinging at the end of a rope? Maybe so, maybe so: but not yet." He smiles, suddenly. "We still have your friend, you know."

So: Alex is alive. Thank god. Thank _god._ Burr tries to breathe evenly around the brutal constriction of his heart. It's not a lot of information but good enough. It will be good enough. It has to be. Even if the man is lying, it is _good enough_. He shifts down on his seat, stretching his knees apart and taking out his little knife; he begins to drag lines in the dirt between his feet. _Alex._

"You worry about him," says the man.

"He is my friend."

You ought to worry. He talks a lot, that one. Likes to argue."

Doesn't Burr know it. He moves on to stabbing the knife-point in the ground. "How are they treating him?"

"How do you treat us?"

His temper flares but _Easy, easy,_ he thinks to himself, remembering this man's hands on his head, on his face, while he screamed and wept and puked -- _Easy,_ he'd said, and he'd given comfort.

So. "What is your name, soldier?"

"Edwards."

Really. "Where do you come from?"

"Leeds. Where the grass is green and the soft rains doth rain."

"Your accent seems familiar."

"Your people seem to have abandoned it entirely. Or tried to."

"Some of us more than others. My family has lived here since the early colonies."

"Practically royalty," says Edwards, and Burr cannot read his face, in the dark, to see what he means by it.

Burr doesn't reply; he turns away. The air tastes strange. It tastes like snow. He does not want this conversation. He takes out a letter from inside his jacket and sits again -- 

_"My sweet-tempered young brother,"_ it begins.

Already Burr is smiling. 

Edwards says: "How goes the war?"

"You are still here," says Burr, without looking away from the lines. "How does you think it goes?"

"Where does she write you from?"

Huh. "Why do you think it's a she?"

"I can see it on your face."

Insolence. He has been in a terrible mood all day, agitated and irritable; he needs something _physical_ to work off his feelings and had been considering a visit to the camp whores, but a fight might do as well. Or better. A one-sided argument. But there's no telling the outcome -- he could be court-martialed, Edwards might be hanged -- and anyway, Burr is better fed, better rested, better physical condition all around and still Edwards is twice his size. And he considers, too, the way Edward held his head; he remembers the water he gave him, the fabric to bite down on. _Lionheart_. So. "It's from my sister," he says. "She lives in New York. The city. Downtown."

"Ah. And is that a very recent letter?" 

Burr folds the paper and looks at his captive. "What do you know, soldier?"

"Nothing," says Edwards; he has the eyes of an angel, limpid and plain. But he is lying, he is _lying,_ and Burr can taste it. What does he know?

For a long time neither one of them speak until Burr says, in a low voice: "You would do well to be careful."

Edwards actually laughs out loud at that. He stretches out on the ground, not bothering with a blanket. "I'm sure someone is telling your friend Alex that same thing."

Burr kicks Edwards in the side and watches him double over in pain, retching on the ground. God, god, he wants to do it again, he wants to _beat him_ \-- and he does not want to do it, he cannot do it, he will not -- so he takes off walking at a furious pace, grabbing the first unbarred shoulder he can find and setting the man on guard duty in his place.

 

 

So Burr ends up at the camp whores after all. He buries himself in one, in thoughtlessness, a desperate clutch at peace. "Aaron," she says afterwards, stroking his face. "Aaron, my dear boy. Do hush."

Obediently he puts his face in her neck and tries to breathe calmly, but his heart and his head are pounding and he wants to go back to that man Edwards and kick him, beat him, _break him_ until he is begging and screaming and can think of nothing but the truth. What does he know about the war? What is happening to New York, to his city, to his sister?

And Alex, he thinks. _Where are you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -it takes a surprising amount of time for your face to return to its shape after injury  
> -rope burn -- and rope injuries -- are no joke  
> -hardtack is also no joke  
> -starvation rations are super bad news but TECHNICALLY they are being fed so  
> -dirt and blood in the water is a great way to get typhus, or cholera, or general dysentery, or  
> -war camps always have terrible sanitation problems, and it's worse for prisoners of war  
> -which is why Burr's "uniform" is shit-stained  
> -sorry Burr  
> -at least you're not the only one  
> -i have zero fondness for Charles Lee. zip. zilch. none. that fucker!  
> -i find military rank totally confusing so here goes: Lee calls Burr "Lieutenant" which is lower than his actual rank here of "Lieutenant Colonel"; it's a deliberate insult that manages to sound like a plausible slip of the tongue, and it's typical petty bullshit from Lee  
> \- the Continental & British armies had totally different rank/naming systems so there's that too, good lord  
> \- I use the term "unbarred shoulder" to mean a low-ranking soldier which may or may not be mad confusing SORRY  
> -Historical Aaron Burr's family (the Edwards) actually WERE in the US for ages and ages, but "royalty" is a bit of a stretch IMO  
> -his sister, here, is well-acquainted with his temperament  
> -"better out than broken" is my feeling as regards teeth, too  
> -sexual release was one of the few things that made Historical Aaron Burr feel better; his journals (to his daughter! oh Burr) are chock-full of references to the prostitutes he visits, the money he spends on them, and the quality of the transaction  
> \- apparently Historical Burr's fondness for the ladies was matched by their fondness for him? IDEK man, he was a terrible flirt but he seems to have treated them pretty well, even the whores  
> -Alex understands Burr perfectly well when he says "lying fuckhead"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Burr witnesses a hanging, receives a letter and we finally finally FINALLY see the back of General Lee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 07/26/16.
> 
> note - violence, death, blood, gore, literal and figurative shit.

Winter comes on, hard and fast. The tents sag with snow and leak along the poles; they sleep in their clothes, now, and keep their boots on. It's damned uncomfortable -- standing, sitting -- and using the latrine-pits is more than just  _uncomfortable_.

 

 

There isn't enough food.

There isn't enough food.

There isn't _enough_ \--

 

 

Lee barters with the British -- speak of uneasy alliances -- and Burr hears about it afterwards, catches a scrap of conversation between two officers as he's waiting outside a tent, shivering despite himself, waiting for permission to enter -- he hears "barter" and "good bargain" and for a quick hot moment he thinks it's Alex and he is warm all over. 

But no. No. Lee asked for supplies, much-needed, he's sure, but he traded powder and ammunition, of all things! and -- 

 

 

"He didn't even _ask_ for food," Burr says to himself; he's boiling water again over the fire so they have something warm to hold, nevermind the tea is run out; he is pacing, resisting the urge to scatter the flames, to burn the world entire. "That brass-balled fuckster, that asswit, that lowlife _scum_ \--"

"Pardon?"

It's Edwards.

They haven't spoken much to each other since Burr kicked him; in a way he's sorry for it. Certainly he regrets the show of temper. "Nothing. That is," he amends, because Edwards grins at him and there's something comforting and familiar in it, "I was expressing my feelings about the situation of rations."

"I have some other complaints, if you'd like to hear them."

"Only if it's within my scope to solve," says Burr, and Edwards shakes his head.

"And you there?" He's looking at the other redcoat, trying to remember his name; he should know it. He should ask. He can't be bothered.

"Nothing amiss, sir," says the man.

"Good to hear it," says Burr, dry.

 

 

Later:

His watch is ended. He goes and smokes -- a rare pleasure, but it seems Lee had the foresight to obtain _tobacco_ at least _,_ and Burr's status merits a portion.

He shares with another officer. _Captain_ Steward. He outranks Burr and surely had his own, but he asks and Burr can hardly deny it -- "Any news from home?" says Steward, and accepts a light, too.

Burr shakes his head. "You, sir?"

"No news is good news."

How anyone can think so ... but he's still thinking of what Edwards said. (If he would just get a letter, just a  _line,_  saying his sister is all right. Anything to stop this relentless gnaw at his middle, it's worse than the hunger.)

They smoke together in companionable silence. For one it does not soothe him; now it's making him restless, in a way that he doesn't like: he wants to  _talk_. Oh he hates that feeling but -- "One of the prisoners said something odd," he says, abrupt.

"Is that so?"

"He said -- I was reading a letter from my sister -- the last one, I received it some time ago, sir. She lives in New York. He saw me at it and he said _Is it a recent letter,_ in a way that made me think --"

"He knew more than he's letting on."

"Maybe they weren't runaways, after all." Who knows what else? Spies, maybe. It's possible. Everyone is a spy, or might be; men wear layers of masks, Burr knows, and the most convincing lie is one believed true.

They smoke.

"Did you tell Lee?"

"No. It's nothing, sir. It was only -- it's nothing, really." Probably.

"Hmm."

 

 

Burr's come late to supper, he's missed the officer's call; he could push forward but he's got no hurry, he is waiting at the foot of the line now, standing with a young private -- one Carroll -- and laughing -- actually laughing out loud-- not because the story is anything marvelous but because the other man is laughing and he's laugh is infectious, it's warm and genuine in a way that few things are, here and now, as they're waiting for another battle soon.

They're waiting to die, all of them, and starving meanwhile; might as well laugh.

 

 

When he returns to his post from a change the young officer guarding with him is pale and wide-eyed and the redcoats are nowhere to be found and Burr thinks -- he does not know what he thinks -- but the man babbles at him "Captain Steward, sir, he took them with him, told me to stay and wait, sir, I --"

"Where did he go?"

"Sir, it was direct orders, sir, I couldn't, I can't, I wanted -- I couldn't --"

Burr takes his arm and shakes him: "Goddammit! If you can't tell me, show me! Talk on the way."

So they stumble to the officer's tents and outside Steward's is a face with a curiously shuttered expression -- Burr knows him, it's one Johnson, a cowardly sort of man, he's enlisted from family pressure and desperately afraid of battle, not with the sick dread they all feel but a panic that makes him almost useless; the last Burr saw of him was at the pits, he was on hands and knees, puking and shitting together in flat, incomprehensible terror.

\-- Something of that in his face now. But he squares his shoulders as Burr approaches. "I have orders, sir."

"Stand aside." He is close enough now to hear the wet noises coming from inside, the soft muffled connection of flesh on flesh, the small moans.

If he were an idiot he would think it the sound of pleasure.

"With due respect sir, Captain Steward outranks you --"

Burr punches him in the jaw and he goes down.

It's bizarrely satisfying. 

And then he's in the tent and the smell of raw meat is everywhere and for a second the lantern, hung up on the pole, makes the view incomprehensible -- just meat, just meat -- and then he picks out individual body parts, two men tied on the ground and a stooped Steward swinging around, turning to Burr with rage on his face and bruised and cut-up hands, sleeves rolled up, blood down his shirt from a broken nose, eyes wild: "Heard any news of the war?"

 

 

It happens like this, then: 

They gather at dawn, a sea of shoulders, heads angling to see. Burr presses forward until he's near the front, not ashamed this time to pull rank to get what he wants ("pardon me -- let me forward, please, pardon, soldier") -- and then he can see, and then -- then --

The men are hooded and still he knows them; he knows all three of them. His hands feel iced for a second and then he is just numb.

Captain Steward.

Edwards.

And the other British man, whose bame he did not bother to learn. 

Burr hates himself.  

Lee is there too, by the side. He's on a horse -- god knows why Lee does the things he does -- and although Lee is stiff-shouldered and grim-faced the horse is shifting about beneath him nervously, showing the emotions he tries to hide. 

Burr's mouth twitches at that but the captain is reading something aloud, it takes too long and goes too fast, and then he's slipping a thin noose over a row of hoods, one at a time -- Burr watches as the rope is forced over one head and then another, until the third one, with its massive bulk undisguised by weight loss and a loose-fitted uniform, that third man raises his chin when the captain's hands go on his head and the rope is tightened snug around his throat, correctly fitted at the ear and the knob of the neck, and Burr is sweating now, he's tucking his hands into his jacket and clenching them against his bare skin -- 

\-- one by one, the bodies drop and twist.

A few of the men cheer. Most of them are silent. Most of them can hear, maybe, the noise of the dying -- or they have heard it before.

Lee's horse paws at the ground and he jerks it up hard with a quick hand on the reins. "Dismissed," he says eventually, after too long, far too long, and the soldiers slink away.

 

 

For throwing a punch, Burr receives an hour-long reprimand.

The man he hit, Private Johnson, is given ten lashes for obeying orders (keeping silent for Captain Steward) and ten for disobeying orders (when Burr told him to step aside).

This makes as much sense as anything else.

 

 

After the hangings Burr needs to walk but it's fucking cold and it's starting to rain again, a thin sleeting, with a sullen cast over the sky. So 

"Out," he snaps to his tent-mate, who's writing a letter, and the man obeys with a jerky nod and a "Sir." 

Once alone, Burr buries his face in his hands. He is shaking all over.

_Alex,_ he thinks, like that word can hold all his grief and regret and longing, all his guilt. Alex. Where are you?

 

 

"Did you hear, sir?"

It is barely morning; the eastern sky is streaked with pink, soft as a lamb's ear. Burr hasn't _heard_ anything at all today but the canvas walls snapping in the wind and the crack of the ice in the water barrel when his fist went through and his own boots, creaking as he walks, breaking the frost beneath his feet.

Now he dips in both hands and brings the water up to his face, rubbing at the roughness of new beard, shuddering at the cold. "Sorry, what? Did I hear what?"

"Lee's going."

_What_. He composes himself, holds back his pleasure with an effort. "Why?"

Carroll grins at him. "He's a shit-eating bastard, is why," he says.

"Private, lower your voice," says Burr. He genuinely likes Carroll; he speaks with a friendly respect with no hint of deference, despite their differences in rank and temperament. "But really."

"Yes, really, sir. Well, the orders probably didn't use those _exact_ words, but I have a friend who runs the mail, and --"

 

 

_Really_ , then: the orders say Lee is transferred due to demands of his station and _blah blah_ but the gist is indeed that he's a bastard and a failure; Washington is angry about the hangings, he's angry about the provisions, and they cannot afford another slip. 

No one is particularly grieved by Lee's dismissal -- least of all Lee himself. They see the back of him seated on a horse, facing south, and he's looking smarmy and proud and defiant. Burr keeps a straight countenance and answers politely when someone asks his opinion, saying "Pressures of war, you know, it's hard on us all --"

The other man rolls his eyes. "I should think even you would celebrate this. Especially you. Didn't he refuse to barter back for your friend, that Hamilton?"

"I don't _celebrate_ misfortune _,"_  Burr begins, but the other man isn't listening and anyway his mind is caught by that other statement -- _didn't Lee refuse?_ (Yes, but how does anyone else know?)

 

 

"Letter for you, Burr," someone calls, and Burr starts. It's been a long time -- far too long -- since anyone has written him; he stopped asking at mail call weeks and weeks ago. His heart leaps up and he composes his face with an effort before he turns around, walks over, takes it with a hand that _will_ tremble, despite all his decision to be calm be calm be calm --

He doesn't recognize the handwriting.

He takes his knife and slits it open and there, in the open, in the rain that is just gathering itself to fall down, he starts to cry -- and _quick_ swallows it down and ducks under the first tent-flap he sees (it's empty, thank god) and stands there and reads the letter and reads it again and again before he can really understand the words, really believe them -- and believe in the signature, too.

 

 

In his own tent again that night he reads it, slowly this time, like it's going to decay soon, like the many small inkblots will run together, smudged with the rain or his tears, grow and grow and darken the page entirely. (Legible or not he'll never let go of it, he thinks in a fever -- never, _never_ \--)

_My_ (large blot) _dear soldier,_ it begins, in the terrible unfamiliar chickenscratch scrawl of a man too long tired and weak, and Burr presses a hand to his mouth and sobs, again --

_I write you from Maryland, wither I marched with our most excellent former countrymen; they finally traded me out for seven good woolen blankets. (It must be hard for you to credit I merit such a price.)_ _Troops here are well enough though hungry of course after this winter; they have eaten their horses, all of them, and their boots, most of them -- I went without boots some time since, the British did not find me as deserving my own pair when their men had not._ _You will be sad to hear that the fine Italian leather, which you've commented on in a tone that may I say is not duly reverential of my esteemable rank, was found to be no easier to chew than the standard soldier's issue._

_I think of you often, which you must know since_ (another large ink blot) _we were parted so abruptly, and at such cost. Nevertheless I am safe and hope this letter finds you the same._ _I will see you when I can._

_Very sincerely your_ (large blot)

_A Hamilton_

 

 

The rain conspires with the young springtime and the light ends early and the men go to bed soon after supper.

Burr listens to his tent-mate snoring and fingers the letter tucked into the breast-pocket of his coat. Too dark to read it again. It doesn't matter. He remembers the words; he can almost hear his friend saying them aloud. He stares up at the mottled, mildewed canvas roof and writes back a long reply, silently, in the dark.

He's got no way to write it down and no place to send it -- he doesn't even know where Alex is stationed -- but it doesn't matter. Alex will hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is not where Charles Lee left in my original sketch of the plot (such as it is!) but I couldn't help myself, had to get rid of him (boo, hiss)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Burr and Alex finally talk again after their separation: some secrets are confessed and other secrets are unintentionally revealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: a small bit of gore; some talk about starvation.

 

Winter has moved on entirely, the snow is gone and the rains come and the trees bud out, he can see them even from here, it's like a fine haze, a mist, a veil of palest green. It's still bitterly cold in the mornings and the nights are long and hard but winter is gone -- yes is it, it really is -- and Alex is safe, somewhere in Maryland, and now all he needs to worry over now is why his sister has not written. _Was it a recent letter,_ Edwards said, implying so much and saying so little.

Burr would like to find him -- wherever he is -- he would like to kick him again until his skull opens up its mouth and speaks. (Can bones feel? Does dust remember?)

Nothing for it. He waits, he smokes a little when he can, dragging it out, tobacco is so dear; he takes the time to be alone and watches the tendril of smoke drift upwards and mingle with the sky.  _Where are you._

How much they have lost already. And when will the war end? Where will be be when it does?

Under the earth or over it, he'll never regain what he's lost.

 

 

And then Alexander comes home. 

Time catches a moment and then he is in his arms.  _"Alex,"_ he says, and they pull apart again, still holding unto to each other, staring and grinning like fools. 

"You are so thin."

"They don't overfeed us, that's for sure. But you look well enough. I'm glad. I am  _glad_." Burr has to stop talking or he will choke on the piece of heart in his throat --

"I thought you had bartered for more supplies?"

He shakes his head. (How had Alex heard that?) "Supplies, yes. But Lee requested ammunition, medical stuff, tents -- not food. I don't know why."

He knows why. Because that was at the start of winter, and Lee expected the ratio of mess to soldier to increase sharply as cold weather progressed. Well, Lee was right enough, but it was the devil's arithmetic.

Alex gives him a hard look. "I should have a word with our good General about that."

"Jesus Christ, Alex, he's already gone. Don't go getting yourself court martialed yet. Wait a few days." He touches that beautiful face -- the fine curve of cheek and jaw, freshly shaven. There: that is the poetry. Something in his chest aches. Oh, Alexander ...

"I have no intention of fighting _two_ wars," says Alex, rather archly. 

"I know very well what that means; you think you'll gain a quick victory. It isn't true. Don't go jumping into things, making messes. We need you here. I need you here."

"Aaron," says Alex, and Burr turns and stares into the treeline to hide his sudden surge of fear: no one calls him _Aaron_. "General Washington wants me to work for him. To write. And advise. He requested me." At least he has the grace to look embarrassed by this partiality. "It's standing orders. I leave tomorrow, dawn." He's babbling now. "The letter missed me by accident and then I was sent up here after the trade out, and -- Burr, _don't look like that._ "

"You've been in prison in the camp all winter, or nearly so; what can you possibly --" He stops. Oh no. Oh  _no_. "Tell me all that was an accident. Tell me the truth. All of it. Not just what I want to hear or what they want me to know."

Alex shrinks down; he stuffs his hands into his pockets and looks away, towards the same clump of trees, as if they can explain this for him. "So ... okay, it wasn't  _deliberate_ , I would never risk our side -- and I wouldn't risk you either, of course not," he says.

But Burr thinks Alexander would risk anything, do anything, for his Causes.

"Don't give me that face, Aaron Burr. I would not risk you."

Except that he had.

Something of this must show in his expression, because Alex flares up. He says, angry now with Burr: "Yes, I led us right over near to their encampment, _yes,_ but I didn't expect a fucking patrol group to find us. How _could_ I have predicted that? I was _supposed_  to meet the aide-de-camp, to let you meet them, too, in case --"

"You've been a fucking  _spy_ for the fucking  _Brit_ \--"

"Jesus Christ, don't be so loud! Of course I'm not a spy! But they think I am. It's all controlled. We feed a careful stream of information and we get a trickle back. It's useful. Well, sometimes it's useful. Honestly, Burr!  _I didn't_ _know_ we would be set on. And I couldn't help that you were beaten, god, all of what they did to your poor face, I'm so sorry --"

"Don't be fucking stupid, I'm not blaming you for  _that_  --"

"You're angry that I stayed, when I could have been traded out? Would you prefer I leave you behind, and injured? Anyway, General Washington did say that I ought to stay where I was, if I could, if I was caught, if I was reasonably safe. He said there are different ways to win a war. He said he would get me. He said --"

And Alex flushes.

Apparently whatever the good General said was too complimentary to repeat.

Burr thinks of the long winter nights alone, sleeping on the ground, feeling the weather and the fear crawl into his bones. He worried for  _months_. And now Alex is here and whole and he is a lying son of a bitch and and now he is leaving again before Burr can get over his anger, his petty sense of betrayal, and if Burr holds onto this feeling it will always be between them and he cannot accept that, he cannot lose Alex again --

It's a deliberate choice. So he forgives Alex this betrayal (no betrayal at all to Alex) and swallows his own grief an pain and sick sense of loss as convulsively as he swallowed a bellyfull of his own blood, because the alternative is fighting, the alternative is losing Alex, and that is unthinkable. He cannot move past that loss.

So he lets the moment die. He lets the heat of anger leave his body. Betray after all is nothing.

And now he feels so cold.

Alex is here -- he's just a few feet away -- so why does he feel so cold? For a second he can't remember: then it comes back. He is here and he is leaving, both together in one moment, one truth. Burr says the only sure thing he knows: "I wish you'd stay."

"I wish you could come with me."

Burr looks away. "Is this what you want?"

"Of course."

"No, I mean working with Washington. Writing for him. I thought you wanted to fight."

"Oh, I do! I do. And I'll be in the thick of it, there. Even if I can only wield a quill." And that fervid light is back in his eyes; he's seeing visions again, but with the light of a campfire between them it's impossible to tell if he wrestles angels or demons. "I want to _lead_ , Burr. I could do so much with a command."

"I know it." He studies him. "Is that what you see for yourself? A group of men to lead? -- And then what? What happens after the war?"

"We go home."

_Home_. It doesn't seem to exist anymore. Maybe it doesn't exist in truth. He hasn't had a letter in weeks. "Both of us," he says to the fire.

"Is that a question, Burr, or a prophecy?"

"You're the seer. What is in the future, O mystic?"

"I see us at home," says Alex softly, not rising to the scorn. "I see your sister's blue Delft tea-set. I see you comfortable and happy and whole."

"Surely not happy."

"Yes. I said happy. I meant it. Even you deserve happiness, no matter how you think of yourself."

Burr is not so sure. But. "And where are you, my Alex, in all this grand visioning?"

"Oh -- somewhere. I'll marry, I suppose. I'll live down the street from you." He grins: "We can have supper together and argue politics."

"Never politics. No. I do not want to hear the word again when this is over."

"We'll play chess, then. Chess and backgammon. And we'll argue philosophy instead. I missed your company this past winter, Lieutenant."

"You'll miss me more," says Burr, around the hard knot in his chest, "when you go away again."

"Maybe I can convince Washington to accept you as an aide." He does not sound hopeful.

"You know we've never gotten along ... Alex, I wish you wouldn't leave."

"I know," says Alex. His voice is unreadable and Burr will not look away from the fire to see his face.

"You'll write me."

"Every day, soldier."

He probably will, too. "If you die over there I will not forgive you."

"I know that, too." Another pause. "Burr, I -- the stars say it's far too late to be awake and talking; I'm to go at first light and ride all day. But I wanted to see you. Speak with you. For as long as I could."

It's fine. "It's fine," he says.

Alex stands up, comes over to him, waits; when Burr doesn't move he crouches on the ground nearby and puts a steady hand on his arm. "I'm not going to leave you."

"This damned war," says Burr, not sure of what he means.

Alex kisses him -- once, on the cheek, near the mouth. They have never done that before nor anything like it.

Alex is so close by; his face is a grey blur in the darkness, his hair lit up in a halo of firelight. "I'll write you. Don't forget to ask for your letters."

"I'll write you."

"I'll see you again when this is over. We'll have tea on the blue china and you can try to win at chess and we'll be warm and full and we'll forget we were unhappy tonight."

As if Burr would forget being unhappy! It was joy that slipped away. "On the other side of the war," he says. "Goodnight then, Alexander. Try to get some sleep."

"And you."

Burr curls up in a bedroll and shuts his eyes but he cannot sleep for thinking of the day and the night and how the implied possibility in that quick, soft kiss means nothing at all to him compared to the pleasure of Alex's conversation. After a while he stops trying to sleep and only lays awake, watching the stars slip further down the overtuned bowl of the sky until they dissolve in rosy-fingered dawn.

He gets up as soon as he is able to see.

Alexander is already gone.

 

 

The letters arrive. Not quite daily ( _liar_ , Burr thinks fondly) but often enough that he can't possibly reply to all of them; anyway, he _hates_ writing --

_My dear soldier_ , one begins

and Burr snorts aloud -- an unusually thoughtless response. It's full of the usual Hamilton nonsense, too many commas and too many stresses and heartfelt assurances of this and that and, but god, his hands must ache at night if he's doing all this and working for Washington too. But Burr reads the letters several times before he burns them, and the best pages -- where Alex drops off being _heartfelt_ and only speaks honestly, simply -- those, Burr keeps with his things or on his person, like armor against hopelessness and grief and fear.

He still has not heard from home.

He does not often write back to Alexander. Only sometimes. He waits until he has something to say, something that _means_ something, which might take days or a week or longer.

Meanwhile, Alex scolds him for lack of response.

_As if I can write as much as you,_ Burr is finally annoyed enough to send.  _You'd be disappointed if I did. Both in content and because it might diminish, by comparison, the brightness of your own enthusiasm._

_Surely you believe my pride is big enough to withstand any such petty blows,_ scoffs Alex. But it must have been a home blow after all because he stops complaining for a while and the letters dwindle down too -- now they only come once or twice a week. Burr is curious and a little hurt, but he doesn't question it -- if Alex is too busy or (but this is unlikely) actually _resting,_ Burr certainly won't raise a fuss.

And then a letter comes to him -- misaddressed, he sees, because the salutation is _My very darling Laurens,_ and the content below itself raises heat to his cheeks.

So. That rumor at least is true.

He remembers the kiss Alex gave him when they parted; he remembers the soft tones they've shared sometimes, the words they've spoken, the words they haven't spoken, and he feels warm all over: Did Alex misunderstand him? Does he think that _Burr --_ but no. Surely not. He's never written like this to Burr, like -- like a man would write to a woman. They each misunderstood nothing.

But there is an  _understanding_ of a different sort between Alexander and this John Laurens, apparently.

All that Burr knows about Laurens is what Alex has told him: he is in South Carolina, he is an abolitionist, he fights with the black troops. That's all he knows.

Except now he knows a little more.

He reads the letter over a few more times, until the sun drops too low and the campfire glow is too dim to make out the words; then he tosses it in the flames. He'll remember it anyway. _My very darling,_ it started with, and ended in _Your H._

 

Drill and wait and drill and wait and skirmish and wait and drill; that is all. Meanwhile, Washington is doing great things in the south. Meanwhile, there are new prisoners. They look hungry. Beyond hungry. They are barefoot and thin enough that Burr winces: he's been a soldier and plenty hungry for several years now but _goddamn_. He heard that Washington ate his own horse last winter, and that was quite bad enough; but at least, Burr thinks, they _ate_.

But these men are not going to starve. Not here, not for now. Now that Lee is gone the prisoners share the same rations as anyone else (although they're meager enough) and they're gone in a moment, _snap!_ like a toad eating a fly, and the men still look horrible. Burr tries to stay away from them; he doesn't like to see those empty-socket eyes, the sharp hollows below their cheekbones, the trembling unsteady legs. He wishes they would go away. He's afraid they will die, that would be the worst thing, if they died, they will never stop haunting him then -- the look of death in their eyes haunts him already -- it brings to mind his Alexander in a sort of inverse association, because Alex too is ready to meet death, he's always out looking for it like he's desperate to repay a debt.

_But Alex wants to live_ , Burr thinks, confused at his own mind; he wants to live and live and _live;_  he only wants to be ready for the end at every moment.

How can anyone bear that sort of existence -- balanced on a precipice --

 

Meanwhile, he calls for mail every day and is usually denied unless Alexander has written, which is more and more rare nowadays; he is tremendously busy with his new command ( _"at last,"_ he writes, and even with a hundred miles between them and nothing but walnut-husk ink to convey his voice, Burr can hear it clearly. _"Finally, finally. I feel my foot is on the lever of the world."_ A misplaced analogy but the meaning is clear enough, his _danger_ is clear enough, and Burr spreads his own fingers over the cramped hasty lines as if he can reach through and grasp Alex by his damn fool neck and shake him: _I told you to be careful. I told you to come home._

Each letter from Alex might be the last one he gets. So he waits until the next one to let the last one go.

Come _home._

 

Meanwhile, their own situation becomes more tense. More skirmishes, more desperation. The Redcoats were almost languid and bored two years ago; now they are nervy, cruel even in their victories, no longer taking prisoners and offering trades of supplies and flesh, but committing quick, brutal violence and leaving the bodies hanging in the open: _Thus to traitors_.

The bodies swell and burst. Clouds of birds descend and rise. They are scavengers, opportunists, much like the colonists themselves.

Even the camp whores are nervous. Burr still visits them sometimes but it's a clumsy sort of transaction now and he can't devote himself to it anymore, he cannot dredge up the effort required, not even to make a woman smile; it leaves him _more_ tired with the dragging urge to sleep and rest and --

 

Meanwhile, Burr stops asking for letters. They've stopped arriving. The blockades, maybe. Or the general chaos of war. He doesn't want to know anymore what is going on at home; he doesn't want to see what the British have done to New York. His beautiful city, its parks and rivers and crowded public spaces, lost. New York burning.

And while he is ignoring home (or  _because_ he ignores it), home comes to find him.

Just a letter. Just a sheet of paper folded on itself to form an envelope and addressed Lt. Col. A. Bur. He doesn't recognize the handwriting and his name is misspelled but his knees feel shaky and he sits down on a log and reads it once, twice, three times, and then he bursts into tears.

 

  
_Aaron,_ she writes.

_Forgive the unforgivable length of my silence, I know that you shall, when you hear all. I have been ill and am only now just recovered enough to write briefly to one I miss so deeply, though these thin words cannot convey the fullness of my heart, and J must transcribe. The British took Brooklyn (you must know this) and for a long time I was insensible of even that, until they moved me to the country, and I recovered there some many weeks, by the kindness of our dear S. and J. and the grace of God's mercy._ _I know you will pardon my gratitude to one whose existence you deny, because in truth it saved your own loving_

_older sister,_ _Eliza Jane_

 

The signature is a scrawl.

He doesn't know where she is, he is unable to write back, but knowing she _is somewhere_ is enough -- it is more than enough -- for now. How dear she is. He sees in the letter her natural reserve, her impudence, in that closure. And suddenly he remembers what Alexander said their last night together. _We'll take tea on your sister's blue china,_ he said.

Well -- maybe.

Burr reads the letter another dozen times before he goes to sleep, and he's (yes) _grateful_ enough to send up a prayer to Eliza's god -- he would pray to anyone who keeps his sister safe and well and close. He adds a prayer for Alex, while he's at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -historical liberties: Alex's trousers should not have the stuff-your-hand-into-it type of pockets, but i really wanted him to do it so SUCK IT, HISTORY  
> -the beginning of war tends to be more "civil" than the end  
> -i really, really do not like Charles Lee  
> -Burr teases Hamilton about being a "seer", here, but Historical Aaron Burr seems to have had some precognition of his own  
> -most of war is very, very boring.


	5. Chapter 5

_Hamilton_ , Burr writes. He is sitting outside his tent -- an officer's tent, and isn't it glorious -- and the late-day sun is filtering down through clouds striped amber and rose, and the wind is blowing, and warmth and cool alternate over his skin, and he misses Alexander so acutely his chest actually aches with it.

_I write you from the eve of battle; shall send it out before we commence; I trust you to send the usual words to my sister if I fall._

He hesitates.

 _Know that I would miss you_ \-- he pauses, and adds --  _both, above anyone else. Even in death I think I would remember you, Alexander. Do our bones have conscious memory? I shudder to think of what grief I might have caused, all unknown, walking over these old battlefields._

He cannot talk of that.There is too much to write, and too little he can say.

_Last week I went to bathe and found a golden band on the riverbank, long buried and half-emerged. Not altogether plain as I thought at first; the working on it is very fine. A lady's band, I think, though that raises more questions than it answers. You have found it in this letter, if grasping hands did not come before you. I wish you would keep it. Give it to --_

He hesitates again.

_whomever you would marry, when you find such a one. Or temper it into something more apt._

He is babbling. He knows it.

_Alex, I am seldom afraid and tonight I am afraid. I remember what you said before you left to be with Gl. W; you seem so clear-sighted, my friend, that it is hard not to trust your visions, but my own heart misgives me. Forgive me. I want to see you again before I die, whenever that is._

_We have heard nothing from your quarter in weeks, if you are there at all. I am afraid this letter will go astray. I see the birds waiting for tomorrow -- the coming feast -- and I do not know whose bones they will meet above. If they are mine, you will find them, won't you? You will hear them call out beneath your feet._

He's shaking.

_Alexander, there is not enough world or time to tell you how I_

He stops. Tries again.

_how I've missed you, these months. I write this outside and the sky darkens faster than nightfall; rain is moving in soon, I think. Your company, your conversation. I thought_

His quill stutters with the uneven pressure of his hand; he must stop and mend it, and it takes effort, it takes concentration, it takes too many damned tries.

_I thought once -- briefly, my friend -- that this affection between us was something else; now I see myself better, and you; I only mistook one love for another. You'll forgive me this too, I know. True affection is so rare. When will we find it again, if not in each other?_

_For your own sake as well as his I hope John Laurens comes up from South Carolina safely. You understand me I know; we do not need to speak of it more than that. It rests there on your word._

_Ten years ago a stray seed blew into my heart, where the soil is poor and ill-tended, and it was tenacious; it held on; I look on it now with awe. It sent roots down deep into my core. I could not roust you from it, my dear._

_You knew all this without my saying; this letter is for my own peace. Keep it for me until I come fetch it later._

_Affectionately, your own_

_A. Burr_

 

 

 _My very dear Colonel,_ writes Hamilton.

_I heard of the battle and I worry for you, the casualty lists are long and of course incomplete though I do check them greedily. Your sister writes me -- and you I expect though she does not mention it, I only include word of this in case her letters do not reach you. She is well -- the city is a horrid mess, she says, but they will rebuild. In her I see the strength of our country, and of course, your own. How alike you two are, in all your dissimilarities! A letter from her is almost as good as one from you -- I could say three-quarters as nice._

_Yesterday I scrounged the first green stuff I have seen in two months, some bitter weed. I ate it all myself and felt no guilt whatsoever. Some of the men are pitted in scurvy and I will be damned if I join them. Pitiable creatures but I cannot feel enough pity to want to join their fate, by dividing in too-small portions what bounty might supply one Alexander fully, if let alone. Feel free to laugh at me, as you shake your head: truly I felt like a horse._

_There is so much to say of the war and I find myself too introspective to mention any of it. My hands ache with the effort to write as fast as the General wants me to, as fast as he needs, and bandying about his ideas wearies my brain almost equally -- his words are great, you know, wonderful and bold, but truth to tell they need some translation before distributing to the common soldier). Therefore I have little to tell you but of my own common things. Maybe you will like them well enough._

_My boots are worn down and my elbows need patching, and it rains, my boy, excessively; does it not leak through your tent?_

_As I always close with a plea for you to write I will not omit it here lest you think something is wrong._

_Yours,_

_A. Hamilton_

 

 

 _Aaron,_ she writes, from somewhere in New York state

_Only a few lines as paper is very dear to us and ink almost as bad. We are all well, myself and Paul and Jennie and the dear children. The city is still full of red coats but now they seem pitiable, almost risible; still I cannot laugh when I think of what you have and do suffer. Fortunately the winter is done; surely another one will not come to us under this same oppression. I must close. I pray daily, nightly, hourly, for your safe return._

_Your loving older sister._

post-script, in a messy scrawl along the edge, and barely legible: _I rec'd letters from one A Ham, laughable indeed but v charming as he must be for GW and AB both to take him so close to their different hearts -- your E._

 

 

 _Hamilton --_ _You see I did not die. Forgive the previous; it was unjustified. I misplaced my pride a moment_ _..._

 

 

_Colonel Burr, ---th regiment_

_Your pride was ever equal to the task put to it, and I bear no resentment nor misgivings, to receive such a letter, from such a man, with such a sight before him, of blood and horror and loss. I heard news of_ you _, my good officer -- though I will not say from what quarter as I know your feelings, not to say_ resentment, _towards gossip, and would not have you look on with suspicion someone who only sought to_ share your praise. _I heard that your horse was shot out from beneath you, and rolled, and you barely escaped misery yourself, but took up a fallen musket and fought on, bravely, as of course_ you would do _, and killed many of the enemy, and saved the lives of many of our own, and earned a place among the names of the elite. -- Shall I tell you who it was who bore the tale? Would you forgive them? No, no. I do not risk the blow, falling as it must on another's back._

 _If you hear of one_ Hamilton _it will be only that my fingers are ink-stained. All this commanding means nothing, I fear and_ expect _, in comparison to the honor of keeping war-journals ..._

 

 

 _Mr Burr,_ wrote the well-known scrawl, some weeks later

_I send this not knowing where you might be and can only pray that it will travel, like the swallows, to its rightful home. You are no doubt on the move -- returning to New York, returning to your sister, returning to the city you love and miss. When will I see you there? Tell me it is soon._

_Thank god this war is over._

_Yours affectionately ..._

 

 

_Alexander,_

_I heard the news of John Laurens. Words fail me here; you do not know my sympathy; it cannot be written; and your own heart must feel the real portion of the ache._

_Yours ..._

 

 

And then long time with no word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -the "It rains, my boy, excessively" line is from a rather saucy letter Historical John Bellamy wrote to his BFF, Historical Aaron Burr. THOSE SWEET BOYS oh my heart oh Burr why does everyone you love die and sometimes it's your fault
> 
> -Historical Aaron Burr actually did sign off "affectionately" to many of his personal letters; his daughter Theo finally complained about it and he teased her right back, saying that he would not use it anymore, and writing his name only would encompass everything he wanted to say -- like his self and his love for her were so beautifully and permanently entangled, they couldn't be separated.   
> OH BURR YOU BEAUTIFUL MESS I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 7/21/16.

" _Alexander_." His knees feel weak; he sits down; he takes a drink of tea to cover the shaking in his hands. It doesn't work. Tea splashes unto his trousers and he hastily puts down the cup. "I didn't know you were here."

Alex looks guilty -- as well he might. "I've only been here two days."

_Only_ two days. "Where are you staying?"

They speak low, over the noise and laughter.

"With Mr -----, at Wall Street."

Barely a block away. Burr tries not to be upset. "You should have told me."

"I wanted to. I was going to. But --"

"You should have told me."

Their eyes meet. Alex looks away. "Ah. Here she -- Have you met Betsey?"

"Who?"

And then they're together, Alex and this women who barely comes up to his shoulder, and he's kissing the top of her head like it's the most natural place for his mouth to rest.

For one long, horrible moment, Burr can't move. Then he's going forward, taking her hand, saying something polite and charming, and Alex is looking at him while he's looking at her and she's smiling at him but the second she leaves ("more lemonade") and Burr turns to Alex, he's staring at the floor again.

"It was all very -- fast. Rushed," he says, to the wood.

"Hasty," says Burr, cruel.

"Unplanned. We were at war, Burr."

"Alex, you're a complete shit. How long have you been married?"

He looks guarded. "Not so very long as that."

"The war ended four months ago, so unless you have had both hands broken since then and also your tongue cut out and unable to _dictate_ \--"

"I didn't want to upset you."

"Useless fuck," says Burr. He's holding on to the front of Alex's coat like one of them is going to break away -- break apart -- if they move.

Alexander smiles a little. "See? I needed to hear that sort of congratulations in person for it to have its full affect."

He's still not looking up; he's got his eyes focused somewhere in the vicinity of Burr's shoulder. Burr lets go of his coat and forces Alex's chin up, forcing that suddenly-shy gaze to meet his; Alex doesn't even fight and Burr holds on, holds on, until Alex actually starts to squirm. Then he lets him go. "I am glad to see you. Married or not. Lying, spying shithead," and he grins at his friend's crestfallen expression, "-- or not. And if you ever trying _anything_ like that again without telling me first, I will happily cut a few inches off your favorite quill. Do you understand me?"

"Aaron ..."

"Go and socialize with your admirers, Colonel. You're very important, or so I've been told."

 

 

Later on that night they're sitting outside against a low wall, near by together, like they used to do after battles -- and before them. Burr has got his legs stretched out before him, lazily kicking at the heel of one boot; Alex is drawn close and tight, looking up into the sky.

Burr's cigarette flares and dims like a star.

From far away they can hear the last sounds of the party, sounding more distant than it really is. A few rooms are still brightly-lit, and all the windows are open to bring in the breeze, but the air is still all around. Now and then someone's laughter rings out brightly.

Alex says: "I wanted to tell you about Eliza."

Burr doesn't answer.

"I wanted to tell you when I first met her. But ..."

"You don't need to explain."

"I want to explain."

"It's fine."

"I didn't want to hurt you," he says again, and there's that tone in his voice again, and Burr remembers, suddenly, with a harsh lucidity that overwhelms his senses for a second, the way Alex sponged off his face when he was injured, crying quietly. _I'm so sorry. Aaron, I'm so sorry._

Burr stays quiet. Smokes. Finally he says "I'm sorry about Laurens." -- And he feels the quiet reaction of the body beside him, too fast for Alex to control it, though he's learned how to do that far more than he ever did before; he's learned to hold his tongue a little, too, and Burr misses the old foolish ebullience. Who taught Alexander to be quiet? When? How long did it take, and how many hard knocks?

"I never told you," says Burr, more carefully now. "You sent me one of your letters to him once. By mistake."

Alex says something under his breath that Burr can't hear, but the sense of it is plain. He's staring straight ahead, his body tense, withdrawn.

"It's terrible to lose someone. Someone you," he swallows, "someone you care for."

Alex is frozen and still.

Burr finishes his cigarette; he rubs the butt in the dirt. He tries to choose his words even more carefully than usual. _Goddammit, Alexander._ "I've never felt," he says, "that your affection for anyone else dimmed -- overshone -- what we, what you and I ..." He tries to laugh. "Jesus, I was captured and beaten and very nearly shit myself to death because of what you did. Do you really think I care what you do at night?"

"Aaron," says Alex, and he sounds like he's choking. "I don't -- there's never been anything like that -- in how I -- for you."

_"You fucking idiot,"_ says Burr, and Alex flinches and Burr doesn't care, he's going on: "I know that. Don't you think I know? Do you worry -- you do, of course you do. Did you tell Eliza about him? No, of course you didn't," because Hamilton is shaking his head mutely, biting his lip. "It doesn't matter. Well, it doesn't matter to me what you do, or with whom, or how often. It might matter to her. But. Alex," and he takes his arm, down low by the hand, curls his fingers around that thin wrist, that trembling form: "You don't need to grieve this alone."

"I do. I _do._ You don't _understand_ \-- "

He jerks his hand away at the same moment Burr releases him and they're left a moment glaring at each other.

Burr counts to ten. Then he takes a tin case out of his pocket and tightens up a new cigarette and puts it in his mouth and speaks around it, bending his head over and cupping his hands around the tiny flare of a match-head: "So tell me."

And Alex draws up his legs again and rests his cheek on his knee; he's looking away from Burr, looking into the quiet darkness that settles down over them like a veil. And he tells him.

 

 

By the end, Alex has his head down in Burr's lap and he's shaking all over and sobbing, and Burr is stroking his hair and down his back, a long movement, breathing slow to give a steady counter-force to the jagged edges of breath that Alex can barely drag in, he's babbling. It's flood of words. He hasn't spoken like this in ...

And Burr tries not to listen. He knows Alex doesn't really want him to hear this, not really; he's talking about things he would never tell Burr normally, intimate things, the taste of a man on the back of his throat, the scent of Laurens when he is freshly bathed, the light falling down into the trees on a riverbank. Flesh and hair and the promises they made to each other, things Laurens couldn't keep or wouldn't keep.

Burr's fingers trace over the bones in his face, repetitive, done to calm; Alex has always been like this -- craving physical touch, desperate for any sign of affection or even attention, even horrible attention. And Burr ... Burr chooses who he loves, when he has the possibility of choice. He draws a line under his heart: _here and no further_. But he remembers writing once, before before a battle, feeling the most awful weight in his chest of fear and foreknowledge:  _You grew in me like a weed;_ _I did not know to roust you soon enough_.

Maybe Alex felt that way about Laurens; maybe -- 

 

His friend is breathing more steadily now, he's stopped talking, he's only sniffling a little now and then, drawing down soft under the constant movement of Burr's hand pushing back his hair, dawdling over his face, his nose and eyes and forehead.

And Burr -- Burr wishes he could do what Laurens did -- giving that same sense of peace, of understanding. His hand reacts to the thought; it drags more slowly.  _Could_ he do it? It would only a moment; it would only be a trace of comfort for Alex. A shred. He's married now, of course, but Alex wouldn't care about that and Elizabeth would never know and anyway Burr owes _her_ no allegiance. So he curves his hand around the curve of Alex's waist, experimentally, and Alex responds: he hunches over further, drawing his legs in more tightly. 

It would hurt him even more. Even if he liked it. Even if _Burr_ liked it. It would be dishonest, it would be -- almost wicked in a way, in a way that the affection between Laurens and Alex never was, he's sure.

And his hand stills and returns to smoothing down the hair that was smoothed down ages ago. He can't hurt Alex any more, even to give him a momentary ease. He won't do that.

So Burr bends his head down; he rests his mouth on Alex's forehead, the small patch of skin above his ear. "My poor boy," he says, quiet so it will not shock the waiting ear that lays hollow, like a seashell, to capture and reflect the world.

But Alex is fallen asleep.

So Burr sits with that heavy head in his lap, wishing he could angle out another cigarette. He watches clouds drape around the half-crescent of the moon; he watches the candelabra in the windows wink out, one by one, like stars when day rises.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- deliberate historical hand-waving: matches were invented buuuuuuuuut sort of awful at this period in time and no one in their right mind would keep them on their person because they very well might burst into flame at any moment (there's several reasons they kept them in metal boxes)
> 
> \- do hand-rolled cigarettes have butts? who knows? not me! I don't smoke. is it obvious that I don't smoke? MY APOLOGIES TO SMOKERS.

**Author's Note:**

> "And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love  
> Cannot be killed or swept aside."
> 
> *
> 
> something something something [tumblr](http://littledeconstruction.tumblr.com/)


End file.
